Famous lover left me with a baby

When a man does a Steve Bing, walks away from his unborn child, questioning whether the child is even his, the consequences for the woman suddenly thrust into single motherhood can be devastating. Even if you aren't as famous as Liz Hurley, the fact that you have failed in a relationship, that you have been betrayed, is self-evident every time you turn up for an antenatal class on your own. "You feel humiliated, let down," says Stephanie Merritt, whose boyfriend ended their relationship when she was four-and-a-half months pregnant. "I certainly didn't expect to do this alone."

Stephanie had her life planned out. She read English at Cambridge, was a successful journalist on a Sunday newspaper awaiting publication of her first novel, had a studio flat in Clerkenwell, and hadn't even thought about having children until she was well into her thirties. Then last year, at the age of 27, she found herself in the unenviable position of knowing exactly what Liz Hurley was going through.

Merritt was in a relationship with the comedian Graham Fellows who, perhaps ironically, was famous in the Seventies with the song Jilted John. He is now 43, and a regular fixture on both radio and the comedy festival circuit - he is perhaps best known for his character John Shuttleworth. They first met when she was sent to interview him: "I had already given him a good review, he is actually very funny," she says. There was an immediate attraction. They kept in touch and started going out. They hadn't been together very long when she found out she was pregnant.

"His reaction to the news was ambivalent, we were both extremely shocked at first," she says. Fellows already had two children from a previous relationship, who live in Lincolnshire. But Stephanie insists that when they found out she was pregnant, they both decided to keep the baby, that there was no question he would not be involved. His decision to walk away a few months later came, she says, as a bolt out of the blue and their separation was, understandably, deeply upsetting. She is very reluctant to talk about what was a painful break-up but is insistent that, having made the decision to have a child, he has to face up to his responsibilities. "We haven't had any contact since a few weeks before Paddy was born - he's five months old now - which has surprised me. It's not something you can persuade someone into; you're either curious or you're not."

Did Fellows not want to start another family? "I honestly wouldn't presume to understand what's going on in Graham's head," she says, "but I hope for the baby's sake he changes his mind." Perhaps, I venture, if women have the right to choose an abortion without consulting the father, shouldn't the father be able to choose to have nothing to do with a baby he hasn't planned? "If the father announces from the beginning that he wants nothing to do with it and that she'll be on her own, at least he has made himself clear and she makes her choice accordingly. But in our case there was no question when we had to make a decision that he would not be involved, this was a choice he made later. His decision to walk away was quite unexpected - he hadn't given any indication until that point."

Going through her pregnancy alone meant she felt alienated not only from her non-pregnant friends, but also from the new-baby community. "As a pregnant woman without a partner you become the subject of public speculation, it seems to bother people not to be able to categorise you. It was hard seeing other fathers who didn't react to their children with indifference and outrage."

To make matters worse, for the last two months of her pregnancy she developed Symphisis Pubis Dysfunction, a temporary condition affecting the pelvic ligaments. Walking became so painful she had to use crutches. The doctor told her to avoid stairs: "He said, 'You'll have to ask him to do a bit of fetching and carrying from now on.' Ask who? I did tell Graham, but I don't think he took it seriously until he saw me on crutches. We saw each other on and off throughout my pregnancy and talked a lot on the phone. But it became clear I couldn't rely on him to support me in any way."

The prospect of bringing up a baby alone in a flat with paper-thin walls, at the top of several flights of stairs, forced her to abandon her metropolitan lifestyle, and move back home to Liphook in Hampshire to be near her parents. "Of course it was a shock when I told them I was pregnant, but they didn't let it show. They've been so supportive. I never thought I would want to go back and live there but as soon as you've got a child you start to see all the things that are good about it. I've rented a house with a garden, there's a nice little nursery Paddy will go to when he's old enough. It's so friendly, the bloke next door even cuts my lawn." Her mother was present at the birth, and moved in for the first few weeks after the baby was born as Stephanie was still on crutches and couldn't even do any shopping.

"It was funny, in the maternity ward. I was the one in the bed at the end with no husband and a tattoo and all these girlfriends who kept coming down from London with champagne and balloons." She went through a period of mourning for her old life - the spontaneous late nights, the motorbike (which she had to sell) - but says it soon passed. "I did look around and think, my God, what's happened? Here I am in this little town with a small baby. A walk to Sainsbury's is my only outing at the moment. But if I want to go out in London, my mum will baby-sit and I can always get the last train home."

She is still young, she is very beautiful and intelligent - a catch in anyone's terms. Doesn't she lament the end of carefree singledom and the effect that parenthood will have on her love life? "It's inevitable that it will change who I go out with in the future. It will make me more cautious about anyone else who comes along. I also think not everybody will be willing to take us on, it's not as if I can leave the baby behind, he's part of my life. I hope it's not the end of dating for 18 years. It puts a different perspective on things."

From next week she will commute to the newspaper's office in London, dropping Paddy off at the nursery on the way to work. Her mother will pick him up in the afternoon. Now that he goes to sleep at 7pm, Stephanie has even started writing her second novel. Her first, Gaveston, about a woman's love for a man who turns out to be not quite what he seemed, is out on Monday.

Fellows, meanwhile, is living with his partner in Lincolnshire, and they communicate only through their solicitors. "I never envisioned a future that would involve dealing with the Child Support Agency. There is no question in my mind that Graham is the father of my child; even on the scan you could see Paddy looks just like his dad. Graham has his reasons for doing what he is doing, and I hope it can remain non-confrontational. However, there is the question of support and we are taking legal advice. I wouldn't want to stop my son's father from seeing him at any time in the future, but I think you have to make a commitment to a child if you're going to be part of their life. I've got to find a way of explaining the situation to my son one day. Paddy is not going to miss out. If anyone misses out, it will be his father."

There is a perception that single motherhood, unless you live in a tower block, is somehow glamorous. "It isn't, even for Liz Hurley. But it's not the end of the world. Life hasn't turned out the way I thought it would, but I'm not helpless. I've got a career and a gorgeous little boy. He's very robust - a lot of people would give away their husbands to have that."